Stopping Excuses...Help!

Back pain, head ache, possible IBS, knee pain, helping mom recover from cancer, keeping up with college classes, being a wife, and lets not forget pure and utter exhaustion. Those are my excuses in a nutshell.

How have you overcome your past excuses? At what point is it reasonable to say, "Okay, I can skip today's workout." I have an all or nothing mentality, right now...it's nothing. Anyone else have that problem?

Wow you have a lot on your plate...and I can see how you are struggling to find the time. personally I would say make it "your time" where no one can bother you and you can look at it is an outlet to all of your stresses in life. The benefit to exercising is that once you get into it, you aren't as tired with day to day life! which will help with all your back pain and head aches. the first 2 weeks are the worst but once you get into a routine it will work!!!

Boy, your excuses (plus a few more) sound like the ones that I used for 30 years. My weight was the same as yours when I was about 22 and two years ago I was bumping up against 300 pounds. Because of those excuses, I kept putting on weight and I found myself in my fifties with worse knee and back pain, almost immobile with a lot of physical problems.

On the days that you are tempted to skip that exercise and eat that junk food, please think about your future. If you don't come to terms now with handling both your life and your weight, you could end up like I did. It is important to make time for yourself so that you can deal with everything that life throws at you.

Another thought........ many of us who are losing many pounds worry about our skin recovering. We talk about wishing we had thought about stretching our skin when we were gaining weight instead of waiting until we are losing it. When you are tempted to let those excuses win, think about having loose hanging skin.

I recommend Barbara Benagh's Yoga for Stress Relief (http://www.amazon.com/Yoga-Stress-Re.../dp/B000ICLRKW). There are routines for headaches, back pain, and digestive issues and more. I started out with simply walking and yoga. My motivation was stress relief that didn't involve overeating. I'm doing much more now that I'm in better shape and have lost some weight.

I've found it really helpful to participate in the monthly exercise goal under Chicks Up For a Challenge. I set a goal of minutes for the month -- that works well because there's lots of time to make up for any missed days, and still tons of motivation to watch my minutes rise each day. If you really aren't exercising at all, you could set a goal for 300 minutes this month. Increase it by 10% a month until you get up to some reasonable number for you.

Take care of yourself! That's a lot going on and you need to make sure your caring for yourself so that you can be there for others.

I *could* use all of your excuses except the cancer and knee pain... but I don't. In the end, it's all about how badly you want this. I really want to lose weight and this time I'm doing it. No matter how many setbacks or stalls, it's happening and I know I will NEVER gain this weight back (except while I'm pregnant, but that's different). You have to really WANT it and you can do it!

I just tell myself no more excuses PERIOD! Exercise will help with your stress and feeling exhausted it only takes us an hour and i call that MY time the world can fall apart but i still am going to get my one hour work out. This about it this way all of though things will be there waiting when you get off the treadmill or finish your class at the gym but now you feel good about yourself because you did it!! you can do it set up a plan and stick to it!!